They say an idle mind is the devil's workshop and America's jobless are here to prove it.

According to the New York Post, the unemployment is driving people crazy, so they're filing for disability when their unemployment benefits run out. In 2011, $200 billion worth of disability claims were filed.

“It could be because their health really is getting worse from the stress of being out of work,” says Boston College research economist Matthew Rutledge. “Or it could just be desperation -- people trying to make ends meet when other safety nets just aren’t there.”

The NY Post also reports:

As of January, the federal government was mailing out disability checks to more than 10.5 million individuals, including 2 million to spouses and children of disabled workers, at a cost of record $200 billion a year, recent research from JPMorgan Chase shows.

The sputtering economy has fueled those ranks. Around 5.3 percent of the population between the ages of 25 and 64 is currently collecting federal disability payments, a jump from 4.5 percent since the economy slid into a recession.

Mental-illness claims, in particular, are surging.

During the recent economic boom, only 33 percent of applicants were claiming mental illness, but that figure has jumped to 43 percent, says Rutledge, citing preliminary results from his latest research. His research also shows a growing number of men, particularly older, former white-collar workers, instead of the typical blue-collar ones, are applying.

​With so many unemployed people filing for and receiving disability checks, it makes the actual unemployment rate in America look better than what it really is. When unemployed people start getting disability checks, they are no longer counted as unemployed. So essentially, people are disappearing from jobless claim records, but not because they are actually working.

Another alarm is that people approved disability are very unlikely to give it up and go back to work. This will eventually deplete the already suffering Social Security fund which is expected to be bone dry by 2018.